HCMC Chamber Reprieved By Senate Earmark

Confirmation arrives late that the US Senate's year-end spending bill, a whopping $1 trillion that barely escaped a filibuster Sunday, includes a $400,000 earmark for replacement of Hennepin County Medical Center's aging hyperbaric chamber. We'd like to think our fall coverage played a small part (but know better). Here's wishing HCMC speedy project funding and completion.

HyperbaricLink Weekly Roundup

This week, as our site developers worked some wizardry behind the curtain, we assessed the nation's hyperbaric preparedness for wars foreign and domestic. Ooh-rah to OxyHeal for aiding the US Department of Defense in its much-anticipated TBI investigations. Now who will rush to outfit our first responders and trauma centers on the home front? Wednesday we sure enjoyed a hot cup of Morning Joe with Autism Speaks co-founders Bob and Suzanne Wright. And yesterday we offered directory assistance to the burgeoning advanced wound care industry. In our spare time, via Twitter and twisted pair, we explored the wonderful world of mild or mHBOT, or personal hyperbarics, for some fun tweets and blogposts next week. Yet more providers and manufacturers got a load of our upcoming Profile+Plus offering. Contact us and we'll email you a link to our quick demo, or stay tuned for the promo and our first batch online. Stay safe and warm, dear reader, till Monday.

Hyperbaric Wound Care: Business Is Good

Perhaps the surest indicator of HBOT's future growth is the present success of hundreds of hyperbaric wound care clinics. The current issue of HealthLeaders magazine counts wound care among the top 4 emerging service lines in hospitals today, with continued demand assured by the increasing prevalance of diabetes. Advanced wound care programs featuring hyperbaric oxygen therapy have enjoyed especially high volumes and reliable returns on investment. Most physicians today can handle basic wound care in their own offices, the author observes, and "will only refer to a clinic that can provide more advanced treatments."

If they can find it. Seems all the best advanced wound care clinics are buried a dozen pages deep in their medical center websites. In the days and weeks ahead we'll be working hard to include more HBOT clinics managed by national wound care companies in our treatment center directory, where referring physicians can find and compare them with just a click or two.

And in time, we trust, many of these chambers will be accessible to more physicians and more patients seeking HBOT for diseases and conditions beyond wound care.

Autism Speaks: In The News, On A Roll

We remain ever watchful for promising news from the world of autism research, and Autism Speaks keeps us up-to-date and filled with hope. In five short years the organization has become the undisputed leader and champion of autism awareness, fundraising, science, and advocacy. And we're always impressed with the clarity of message across such a breadth of activity. Catch up with co-founders Suzanne and Bob Wright on this morning's Morning Joe, below. And bookmark our autism page for the latest research findings on hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

HBOT: Homeland Security Against Cyanide Terrorism

One shudders to think of it, but cyanide poison has become an all-too-imaginable weapon of terror in these troubled times. Maybe we're especially troubled, writing to you from Chicago, home of the 1982 Tylenol murders and the subway scare of 2002.

Hyperbaric oxygen may play a small but critical role in our preparedness for cyanide attacks. According to the chemical terrorism update by Coleman O. Martin, MD, in the July 2002 issue of Emergency Medicine:

Hyperbaric oxygen administration is an adjunctive therapy in patients who do not respond to cyanide antidotes. This may be particularly helpful in cases where methemoglobinemia is excessive and the patient cyanotic. Hyperbaric oxygen should also be considered in patients with cyanide toxicity from smoke inhalation because their high levels of carboxyhemoglobin can hinder safe induction of methemoglobinemia.

Of course O2.0 readers will know that HBOT is approved for treating carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning complicated by cyanide poisoning after smoke inhalation. Better homeland security provides all the more reason every fire rescue squad and trauma center in the US should have 24/7 access to emergency-ready hyperbaric oxygen chambers—plenty enough to handle large-scale disasters, whether tragic accidents or unspeakable acts.

OxyHeal Wins DoD Contract To Support TBI Study

We're happy to report it's getting difficult for us to keep score of all the good HBOT research now under way for our military troops and veterans recovering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). The US Department of Defense just awarded OxyHeal Health Group a major contract to support its Centers of Excellence (DCoE) for Psychological Health and TBI. In preparation for the trial, entitled "Hyperbaric Oxygen Applied Late after Mild to Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury," the company will fabricate, install, lease, and staff multiplace hyperbaric chamber systems at four military sites. The DCoE:

assesses, validates, oversees and facilitates prevention, resilience, identification, treatment, outreach, rehabilitation, and reintegration programs for psychological health (PH) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) to ensure the Department of Defense meets the needs of the nation's military communities, warriors, and families.

Well, alright, then. Lock and load! And with over 40 years of experience in chamber design, manufacturing, and contract management, OxyHeal stands ready and able to serve.

Read the full press release here.

HyperbaricLink Weekly Roundup

This week we filed some new posts and tweets on familiar themes, while busily preparing our site for the New Year ahead. HCMC stepped up its fight to keep Hennepin County, the Twin Cities, and Minnesota fully prepared for carbon monoxide, smoke, and burn emergencies. Best Publishing ran a holiday sale. Kindred Hospital Kansas City won UHMS accreditation and an upgraded directory listing. We're also proud to have added ProHBO in Greater Atlanta (Marietta, GA) and made acquaintances with dozens of others. Select treatment centers and chamber manufacturers got a sneak peek at our new Profile+Plus feature. (The world at large needn't wait much longer.) And it was an especially productive week of social networking, as we enabled readers to preview our news and share nice with AddThis, studied up for a Facebook launch, and broke 1,000 followers on Twitter, where we tweeted, too, on topics ranging from home safety to chronic pain, migraine, flu vaccines, autism, lupus, fibromyalgia, and wound management. Thanks to all who corresponded, conversed, and commented.

Kindred Hospital KC Earns UHMS Accreditation

HyperbaricLink congratulates Kindred Hospital, Kansas City, MO, upon being named the first long-term acute care facility to receive accreditation by the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS). In its Facebook post Kindred notes that its KC wound care team is led by a board-certified hyperbaric physician and medical director and includes two full-time certified hyperbaric technologists and one part-time certified hyperbaric registered nurse. We've spruced up our directory listing to acknowledge the hospital's well-earned status upgrade.

Hyperbaric News You Can Use (And Reuse)

We're always working to bring you the most clickable, stickable, and collectible hyperbaric news on the Web. Now it's easier than ever to save and share our blogposts via AddThis. (Bonus points to you, AddThis, for creating such a healthcare-appropriate logo.) Just scroll over the SHARE widget below and click for Facebook, Twitter, email, or your favorite social medium. Remember, too, our comment section's open for business, and we welcome your ideas, complaints, and suggestions. Starting today you can also preview blog content on our homepage and access our entire archive of disease-specific news from any conditions page. All this to keep forging better and stronger links to, from, and within HyperbaricLink.com.

CyberWeek Special: Free Shipping From Best

The good people at Best Publishing have been producing professional and educational books on hyperbaric oxygen therapy, diving, and wound care since 1966. What a great service to this specialized field of medicine. Right now they're offering free shipping on their entire catalog. What a great time to visit Best's online store and make your holiday gift selections.